Isolation of novel microbial strains to develop efficient biofertilizer

Scientific Team:

Dr Rajen Baruah (PI)

Advisers: Dr M V Deshpande

• Objectives:

  • Evaluation and validation of biofertilizer from Phase I​

  • Harnessing of novel acid tolerant bacterial strains​​

  • Comparative assessment of native strains with commercial strains​​

  • Study on Plant-microbial interaction

• Salient Achievements:

  • Field trials on different crops confirmed native biofertilizer agents superior

  • Isolated 62 bacterial strains and 37 confirmed tolerance to acidic stress (pH 5.0)​

  • Twenty (20) acid tolerant bacterial cultures exhibited traits for plant growth promotion​

  • Assessment of native and commercial strains (procured from MAU) revealed native strain PGP 25 as an efficient PGPR​

  • PGP 25 (Burkholderia cenocepacia) may be claimed as a novel isolate because it efficiently solubilize 42.98 % of P2O5, 42.12 % K2O and as well as 9910 ppm of Zn

  • Whole genome sequencing of 4 native biofertilizers agents successfully completed viz., PGP 25 , Azosp 71, Rhiz 25 (Pea) and Rhiz 5 (French Bean)​

  • ​Biosynthetic and metabolic gene clusters mining revealed existence of IAA, Siderophore, ACC deaminase and urease biosynthesis genes in PGP 25

• Expected outputs:

  • Novel biofertilizers to enhance crop production in Assam​

  • New sources and technologies for production of biofertilizers​​

  • Transfer of technologies to entrepreneurs for conversion of the NE region into an organic hub​​